Obama Administration Kills Corinthian Colleges

Under President Barack Obama, the Department of Education has been making corporate existence very hard for for-profit colleges.

The hard-hitting regulation strategy has now claimed a major scalp. This week, Corinthian Colleges, one of the largest post-secondary education companies in North America, officially announced that it is bidding goodbye to the world.

Corinthian Colleges (Nasdaq: COCO, currently worth 23 cents a share) operates colleges under three different names. None of them are “Corinthian.” Instead, the schools are called Everest, Heald College and Wyotech.

Over 70,000 students enrolled at branch campuses across North America will be affected.

Corinthian’s immediate problems began in January when officials from the Education Department requested in-depth information about individual Corinthian students including their attendance records, the jobs they ended up getting and their Social Security numbers.

Federal officials sought the information to investigate whether the for-profit college group was abiding by regulations connecting federal aid money to various measurable outcomes for students and graduates.

For reasons that are unclear, Corinthian failed to respond to the records request to the satisfaction of Education Department officials. The bureaucrats responded by holding Corinthian’s federal aid funding for 21 days. This hold, coupled with lower enrollment and already-existing financial issues, caused a huge cash flow problem.

And thus did Corinthian Colleges rather quickly go kaput.

In the midst of the crisis, Corinthian’s executives and Education Department officials worked out a deal to allow the dying for-profit company to serve enrolled students who want to stick around to finish their degrees.

“We are pleased to have reached an agreement with ED that helps protect the interests of our students, employees and other stakeholders,” CEO Jack Massimino said in a statement obtained by NPR. “This agreement allows our students to continue their education and helps minimize the personal and financial issues that affect our 12,000 employees and their families. It also provides a blueprint for allowing most of our campuses to continue serving their students and communities under new ownership.”

The for-profit education sector has been facing immense pressure in recent years. While part of the pressure is due to slumping enrollment, the companies have brought much of the heat on themselves because of business practices that range from questionable to downright predatory.